FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

First step obtain seeds from a reliable source. I did this by buying some Charles Brewer open pollinated seeds. A single pack should suffice. Seeds arrived around the 25th of July. Yay! 9 seeds show up.

Uh oh. I know nothing about Cephs, I better search for some info. Wait I'm getting contradictory information on stratification. Do I? Don't I? Well since people say yes and no, I'll split them into two groups. One group of four seeds will be a direct sow and the second group of five seeds will be put into the fridge with some LFSM. This was done 7/31.

I was lazy and left the stratisfied seeds in the fridge until like 11/7. So they were in there for just over three months. I got them out made up their pot, and got them sowed and bagged up.

I usually only look at my germination attempts on the weekend. During the week I exchange the air out of the bags by cracking the seal and blowing into the bag. Never really looking. I should add I cut my Zipp lock bags sideways to accommodate for bigger pots. This also allows me to just unzip the bag an inch and blow in it without having to remove the entire bag.

Up to date as of yesterday. I was removing bags to look and see what was going on. Four of the five stratisfied seeds have germinated, while the unstratisfied group is still completely void of life.

I know I'll be stratisfying all of my Ceph seeds in the future. I'll also be keeping a record here as things progress.



Thanks for looking!



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Just a quick update.

I looked this past weekend and 5 of 5 of the stratisfied seeds have sprouted. Still no life from the unstratisfied seeds at all, although I'm still trying to be hopeful.

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So in your opinion, would it be better to stratify?

HeliamphoraWalnut wrote:So in your opinion, would it be better to stratify?

Just based on this experience I would say yes, most definitely. If I attempt Cephs from seed again I'll stratisfy all of the seeds, since in my conditions that seems to provide a quicker/better rate for germination.

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Any updates? Have the non stratified seeds sprouted yet?

HeliamphoraWalnut wrote:Any updates? Have the non stratified seeds sprouted yet?

Nope, unfortunately there's still no sign of Ceph life in that pot. There is signs of moss starting to sprout though. Maybe that'll be some incentive for the seeds to do something.

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Hi Boarderlib,

Have any seeds from the unstratified group sprouted? I am also doing this experiment too but I put like 70% of my seeds into the non stratified pot

Congrats on your germination. I know cephs seem to take their time stratified or not. I have heard of seed taking over a year so dont give up on the second pot.

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silvercomet wrote:Hi Boarderlib,

Have any seeds from the unstratified group sprouted? I am also doing this experiment too but I put like 70% of my seeds into the non stratified pot

No, it's still a void other than some moss sprouting. Hopefully your results fare better than mine.

Seymour_ wrote:Congrats on your germination. I know cephs seem to take their time stratified or not. I have heard of seed taking over a year so dont give up on the second pot.

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Oh I'm pretty stubborn so I'm not giving up yet. It'll be awhile before I throw in the towel on those, as I've heard it can take awhile sometimes.

Just a little update I did notice some of the stratisfied seedlings are working on their second and third pitchers, so I'm really excited about that. I also started acclimating that pot to household humidity levels.

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Thats awesome! I find it very rewarding growing from seed. It teaches me patience.

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boarderlib wrote:

silvercomet wrote:Hi Boarderlib,

Have any seeds from the unstratified group sprouted? I am also doing this experiment too but I put like 70% of my seeds into the non stratified pot

No, it's still a void other than some moss sprouting. Hopefully your results fare better than mine.

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This a bit frightened me as Charles Brewer told me to place the seeds on the live sphagnum moss and just wait. So I did put most of mine in live sphagnum moss and keep waiting while 5 other seeds I have are also placed on live sphagnum moss and into a zip bag into a fridge. Hopefully they will all sprout though.

Do you think if you stratify your second pot now for 2-3 months they all will sprout later? I mean its just like in nature, just sit there on the media and wait for the winter to come through.

Seymour_ wrote:Thats awesome! I find it very rewarding growing from seed. It teaches me patience.

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Me too, but I find it more like watching my kids grow up and finding their own way. If I look at it like that I'm not quite as impatient.

silvercomet wrote:
Do you think if you stratify your second pot now for 2-3 months they all will sprout later? I mean its just like in nature, just sit there on the media and wait for the winter to come through.

That's funny. I was just wondering the same thing yesterday. I may use that as a last resort before I throw in the towel on them, but that is probably another six months out before I even think about throwing in the towel.

Don't get discouraged by my results thus far. These are in my conditions, which yours will vary so that may completely change your outcome.

Keep us posted on your results, please silvercomet?

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In my experience it takes months for ceph seeds to germinate. If the seedlings are set back for any reason after germinating they can take more than half the year to recover.

It's great to know about the stratification, it probably explains my slow results.

David F wrote:In my experience it takes months for ceph seeds to germinate. If the seedlings are set back for any reason after germinating they can take more than half the year to recover.

It's great to know about the stratification, it probably explains my slow results.

Thanks for the insight! That's quite the recovery time.

I'm now wondering if the stratification duration plays a role too. I know most posts I've read stratisfy the seeds for between 6-8 weeks, whereas mine was pushing 12 weeks. I need some more Ceph seeds.

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boarderlib wrote:

silvercomet wrote:
Do you think if you stratify your second pot now for 2-3 months they all will sprout later? I mean its just like in nature, just sit there on the media and wait for the winter to come through.

That's funny. I was just wondering the same thing yesterday. I may use that as a last resort before I throw in the towel on them, but that is probably another six months out before I even think about throwing in the towel.

Don't get discouraged by my results thus far. These are in my conditions, which yours will vary so that may completely change your outcome.

Keep us posted on your results, please silvercomet?

http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/board ... 30434.html
http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/board ... 31990.html

Definitely boarderlib,

So here is my quick update on my sowing. I sowed 17 on the outside pot, very airy mix of lsfm and perlite and some clay pebbles layered on top with live sphagnum moss and cover with a piece of net. I top water the pot together with all of my hanging nep pots, mainly intermediate like trun x merri, spathu x bos and the likes. The other pot I use the same mix and have 5 seeds into an opened bag into the fridge.

All sowed on 10 Jan.
Some pics:



As of today, 2 Feb.




Some got lost into the moss (and Im pretty sure none was blown away cuz my net secured all inside), even the pot in the fridge, I accidentally swing the bag into my table so 5 seeds now only 3 can be seen and I didn't bother find and dig the other 2 up cuz they are in there anyway. These seeds are hard to look at though, not like trap or nep seeds. Nothing up so far, it's only almost a month so can't tell for certain.
I should have put more into the fridge and probably used the old stratification method of a layer of lsfm into a sealed bag like I did with sarra before but it's done already. Regarding the seeds, I got them from Smooter80 and not sure how long have them been harvested. Charles Brewer did tell me to sow them right away cuz they lose viability each day and he said if I got like 10% germination that's still a success. Forgot to go and check this thread of yours, only looked it up after I sowed everything.

Regarding germination, here is what I have known so far. Ceph seeds might be different from Sarra a bit but I do know Sarra seeds do have a layer of coating outside and some ppl did use GA3 to break that protective cover for easy germination.
I did experiment with Leuco seeds. 3 months harvested seeds, store in my table drawer in sealed zipbag, germinated 2-3 weeks after sowing, then majority showed up after 2 months. Did another batch stratification in fridge for 4 weeks, 10/10 germinated within 2 weeks and 3 earliest showed up on the 9th day after sowing. It's a small sample but the difference here did exist but only by several days. I asked Hollyhock and he said he got Cephs seeds that were treated with GA3 to break the dormancy coat before being sent to him, germinated in 1-2 months or so.

So with these insights, I think that the coating do exist with Ceph seeds like in Sarra. There might be a timeframe for them when after that, you will need stratification to get the seeds germinated, other than that, I did see people on this forum as well as other forums report that seeds got collected immediately from flowers and sowed germinated within 1 month. So back to your unstratified pot, I would think if it would be me, if they don't show up germinated in March, might as well throw the pot into fridge for 2-3 months and take out. Not sure where you live but I live in VN, it's spring here, temp around 25-27C, bright diffused direct light to where I hang my pot and stratified at 6-8C in a glass cooler fridge. You sowed yours in the winter though so not sure why yours have not showed up